Repeat
by hadaka
Summary: The past has a tendency to repeat itself. dropDead-Dreamer's Repeat prompt.
1. 1

**Disclaimer:** Do. Not. Own.

**Warnings:** Relationships between men.

**Additionally:** Based on the Repeat prompt from dropDead-Dreamer. Man, this one haunted me for days. WIP.

* * *

**Prompt:** Repeat: The past has a tendency to repeat itself.

* * *

_At 18._

"Move in with me."

Sena lowered his Starbucks cup.

Kengo looked so...serious.

"Huh?" said Sena.

"Move in with me." Kengo was looking directly at him, without wavering, not even a hint of teasing to his face. "I know you want to move closer to Enma. Monta said you were looking at apartments. So. Move in with me."

Sena frowned. "Is your apartment even big enough?"

"No," said Kengo, and there was that flash, that spark of the beginnings of a high-voltage grin. "But we spend all our time on the field anyway."

The Starbucks was crowded. At the table beside them, a group of high school girls had been eyeing their Enma letter jackets with keen interest for at least thirty minutes. A tall, modelesque girl with long black hair was glancing at Kengo's profile and nibbling at her lip.

Kengo didn't seem to see it. He was looking straight at Sena.

"Um." Sena took another sip of his soy chai. "I don't know..."

"I wouldn't mind having a roommate," said Kengo, and he was very, very casual. "I guess I haven't gotten into the habit of living by myself yet."

Sena wanted to smile at how diligently Kengo was avoiding using the term _boyfriend_. It was something he'd asked Kengo to do. And he wanted, in some weird way, to bite his lip at how he could so clearly hear what Kengo was very deliberately not saying.

"It's only been four months," said Sena. "Maybe you just...need a little more time."

The press of Kengo's lips. "Man, four months is _forever_. I think I'm just going to have to admit I'm not big on space."

Sena had never been good at math. Four months plus two months minus eight months plus another imaginary two months...

_No._

"Well," said Sena, "maybe."

There—that blinding smile, bright and golden, like looking into the sun. Sena almost wanted to put up a hand, shield his eyes. "Hell yeah! I'll clean up tonight—I know you're kind of a neat freak—"

"I didn't say yes," said Sena, trying to frown and failing.

"Uh-huh," said Kengo happily. "I know you, man. A _maybe_ from you is like a _yes, please_ from anyone else."

There was...something about that that should have bothered Sena. But Kengo was grinning, all bright hair and bright face, and the affection and pleasure in his eyes were like a kind hand on Sena's face. Sena pushed away his doubts and smiled back, thinking that maybe four months wasn't too crazy and trying to imagine a seemingly endless succession of early, early mornings where the alarm went off and he woke up with this long, golden body pressed up to his back, that protective arm stretched across his field of vision.

_I love you,_ mouthed Kengo, when he figured no one was looking, and winked.

Sena blushed, which he knew Kengo still liked to see, even after four months.

The modelesque girl's eyes were round.

Kengo left him outside the Starbucks. He had plans to meet up with Kakei and go to Akiba, and then he would pick up Sena again to get something to eat. Sena, meanwhile, was going home to try and get either his statistics homework or his laundry done and then to finish boxing up the last of his things.

Kengo's hand on his shoulder, delaying just a few seconds too long, made Sena think of the long, lingering kisses Kengo pressed to his neck and face and mouth when they were alone and about to part, as if Kengo was leaving last-minute instructions on Sena's skin.

_This is happiness,_ thought Sena.

The day was cool and windy and gloriously blue. Sena saw nothing of the short train ride back to his neighborhood, because his eyes were full of Kengo and Kengo's apartment and what it would look like when it was _their_ apartment. He would have to tell Monta, and Suzuna would want to know, and there was no way to keep it from Riku. He didn't think it would be too shocking to anyone else, either, since most everyone on the team knew Kengo and Sena were together, and obviously Kakei-san would know almost immediately—

Unsui would probably promise not to say anything. And Sena would thank him politely, and that would be that.

_Don't think about it,_ Sena told himself.

He tried to think instead about the futon situation (since Kengo would insist, and neither of their single futons were big enough for both of them—maybe they could lay them out together?), the kitchen situation (since Kengo ate like a starving man but cooked like his own disaster area, probably Sena would have to be in charge of all culinary activities), the key money (Sena would insist that he pay at least half of that too, in addition to the rent), and what he was going to tell Mamori (since she was fully capable of marching over and demanding to know what Kengo's long-term intentions were), and before Sena knew it, he was walking up the stairs to his second-floor efficiency, a little breathless at the thought of—

"Fucking trash."

_Run away,_ a little voice told Sena, but his legs wouldn't move and he stood there, one hand in his pocket and the other on the strap of his bag, and stared.

"You busy?"

Sena was gripped by an insane urge to turn around and run as fast as he could down the stairs and back up the street. He had ten minutes to make the next train, and if he ran—if he _ran_, he could probably still catch Kengo at Akihabara Station, he could catch Kengo and ask him to please change his plans and stay with Sena for the day, would he please come and help him pack his things, he was really sorry about Kakei-san but if Kengo could just do this for him, just for today, for tonight—

"You don't look busy."

The right thing to do here, knew Sena, was to walk away. He knew _exactly_ what to do: turn around, walk away. The end. That was the right thing to do. Because Kengo...

Because Kengo...

The hand that slipped over the back of his neck made Sena's knees go weak.

"How have you been, trash?" And then, meanly, _cruelly_, because it was _him_ who left, it was _him_ who vanished without a word, it was _him_ who stopped answering calls and stopped coming over and totally, completely cut Sena's legs out from under him, "You miss me?"

Something inside Sena was shaking, and that same little voice was saying _But Kengo..._

The grip on his neck tightened. "You going to invite me in, trash?"

_No,_ shouted that little voice in him, _no! Go away!_ Sena could take a beating, if that was what it took. And he could tell Kengo later, _ah, I fell on my face,_ and Kengo wouldn't believe him and would demand to know what had happened but Sena could reassure him that it was an accident and it would never, never happen again—

But that little voice seemed to just—extinguish, or maybe drown—under the heat of that hand on his neck, and it was a small, needy, pathetic, _other_ voice that said, "Maybe."


	2. 2

**Disclaimer:** Do. Not. Own.

**Warnings:** Relationships between men. Some salty implications and language.

**Additionally:** Based on the Repeat prompt from dropDead-Dreamer. Man, this one haunted me for days. WIP.

* * *

**Prompt:** Repeat: The past has a tendency to repeat itself.

* * *

_At 22._

"Have you thought about where you want to go?"

Sena pulled a pillow over his head and sighed. "Somewhere _warm_."

A drawer opened, and Sena could hear the box of cufflinks being taken out. "Hm. Then...the Bahamas?"

"You're just trying to get me naked in public," said Sena into the pillow, and blushed faintly, even though his face was covered and the words had been muffled.

A smile then, one that Sena could feel even through the silence. "Naked is a good look on you."

Sena tried to frown, but he was probably pouting. He shifted around under the blanket until he was lying face-down, the pillow still over his head. "Don't you have a dinner to go to?"

A laugh, this time, brief and low, almost soundless, but the affection in it made Sena's breath catch.

The door to the bathroom was open. Sena could tell because the room was beginning to fill with the damp heat of the shower, the smell of the men's bodywash that they both used. There was a hint of aftershave.

A hand pressed flat against his shoulder, the fingers stroking his arm, and a newly shaven chin brushed his neck. "I could just stay home."

He sounded so hopeful. Sena shook his head under the pillow and said, trying for the sternest tone he could manage, "Shien, you promised your father. And _I_ need to study for exams."

The sigh was long and warm against his back. "Right. I suppose I shouldn't ask for trouble. And—"

The kiss behind Sena's ear.

"And it wouldn't hurt to have him buttered up for when I introduce you."

Sena bit his lip. And said nothing.

The fingers tightened, and Shien was holding his arm. "You changed your mind?"

"No," said Sena hastily, and he pulled the pillow off his head, his hair sticking to his forehead, and blinked into the light. "No, I haven't. It's just...um..."

He was blushing again. He recognized the familiar heat in his face, the tingle in his skin as all the blood rushed toward the surface. Sena sometimes wondered if he'd ever be mature enough not to blush over stupid things. Naked in bed in the apartment he lived in with his lover and he still blushed.

But Shien was smiling.

Such a smile. A small and crooked smile that made Sena dizzy with nothing more than what it seemed to do to Shien's eyes.

"I think he already knows," murmured Shien. "He keeps hinting that I should bring my _friend_ by. Since Jo got married, he's been after me to settle down."

Sena's stomach fell through his feet. He couldn't meet Shien's eyes.

"Hey." Shien leaned over him, the front of his suit against Sena's bare side. The fabric was cool and sleek to the skin. "He knows I don't like women, Sena. He won't talk about it, but he knows."

Sena couldn't look at him.

"Have I told you about all the adoption pamphlets I've been finding in my old room?"

All his anxiety escaped Sena through his closed lips. _Pffft._ He was shaking with stifled laughter when he glanced at Shien over his shoulder. "You're only twenty-three!"

"And you're only twenty-two." The smile was gone. Shien looked serious. "Does that mean a fella can't dream?"

Sena's heart almost stopped.

He didn't know what the expression on his face was, and he wasn't looking at Shien. But Shien's arm closed over his body, pulled him back against Shien. The blanket was dragged over his hip and Sena gasped with embarrassment to find himself almost completely exposed.

"Shhh." Shien's mouth was in his hair. "It's all right, Sena. I'm just teasing. We've got all the time in the world. I can wait as long as you need."

_All the time in the world._ Sena shivered as Shien's hand came to rest on his hip.

"You have to go," whispered Sena.

Shien stilled.

When had Shien changed, wondered Sena. He remembered what Shien used to say all the time, about how nothing good could happen without something bad being close behind. Or something like that. When was the last time Shien had said that? And when had he decided that wasn't the case anymore?

When had Shien begun to trust Sena so much? So awfully much?

Sena pulled away from Shien, rolling onto his other side. Before Shien could react, Sena lunged forward, throwing his arm around Shien's neck and pressing his face to Shien's neck.

"You've got to go," said Sena. "You're going to be late. And if I don't study, I might not graduate. _Then_ how are you going to introduce me to your father?"

Sena could hear the laughter in Shien's chest, could feel Shien's hands in his hair. The tension had gone out of him. "Tactfully."

Sena's mouth found Shien's, and it was as if all the world disappeared but them. It was always like that, with Shien—like Sena wanted or needed nothing else from the world but that Shien was there. Sena remembered the six months they'd dated, when he'd spent most of his time stammering and being overly nervous because he'd always seen Shien as so, so _unreadable_, so cool and collected and calm, and he'd worried himself sick over why exactly a guy like Shien would want to be with a wreck like him.

Then in their second year, Shien hadn't so much asked him to move in as he'd stated that it would be much handier to just live together, as he was tired of running into Riku in the middle of the night when he stepped out to the bathroom or the kitchen (experiences which both Riku and Shien described as _traumatic_), and Sena hadn't so much said yes as he let himself be carried along by Shien's quiet certainty.

"You're going to be _late_," said Sena against Shien's lips. _"Go."_

"You sure I couldn't just...?"

"Very sure."

"You could come with me?"

"I could fail out of university. Then you can go to the Bahamas by yourself."

"I've got five minutes, we could—"

"_We_ aren't doing anything in five minutes, Hugo Boss. Not in that suit."

Shien _loved_ it when Sena got bossy. Sena knew it, though he didn't know _why_, since he didn't think he could be very effectively bossy with all this uncontrollable blushing.

There was another kiss, slow and promising, and then Shien finally got out of the bed. He stood there, straightening his jacket and tie, his hair black gloss, and he looked at Sena. "How do I look?"

"You look happy," said Sena where he was lying against the pillows, and he wasn't looking at the suit. "You look really happy, Shien."

Shien looked...startled.

And then he smiled.

"You don't look so bad yourself," he murmured.

Sena laid in bed and looked at the ceiling and listened for Shien's footsteps, for the door opening, for the key in the lock. He imagined Shien getting into the elevator, pressing the button for the first floor, walking out into the bitter cold and toward the car waiting for him.

The bed was warm and smelled like Shien's cologne. Sena wrapped himself in the blanket and thought about just going to sleep, lights on and laptop waiting and all. But he hadn't lied when he said he needed to study—exams were around the corner, and each one counted for fifty percent of a grade. Sena didn't think he could afford another year at Enma, not without asking his parents for help, and he was determined not to do that. He'd actually been studying in their office when Shien had come home to get ready for the dinner, and he'd managed to...distract...Sena from his coursework. They'd been in a hurry, and Sena was still a little tender.

He pulled on a shirt (Shien's) and a pair of shorts (his) and went to the kitchen for a cup of tea. The apartment was dark, the only light still on being in the bedroom, but Sena moved easily through the dimness. He knew exactly where everything was—the couch they had picked out together, after a night of drinking had led to several of their friends throwing up on the old one; the curtains and drapes that Mamori had presented to them as a housewarming present, in a slightly unnerving shade of off-white; all the different pictures in their frames. The apartment was a mixture of spare, upscale furniture of dark wood and things you could find at vintage and used shops. Mamori described Shien's taste as being _modern_, while Suzuna had informed Sena that his was _affordable_.

Sena smiled to remember how Mamori and Suzuna had reacted to being told he was moving in with Shien. They'd been so—not dismayed, but _confused_.

Shien and he got that a lot.

He was back in the study, tea in hand, about to sit at the laptop when the doorbell rang.

Sena frowned. Eight o'clock at night, on a Thursday? Who could be visiting? No one he knew came over without texting first. Had Shien forgotten something? But he had a key.

The tea was left by the laptop. Sena was in the living room, walking toward the door, when he distinctly, even in the dark, saw the lock turn, heard something that wasn't a key clicking in the keyhole, and saw the door open.

And he knew, even before he saw anything but a tall, faceless shape standing in the opened front door, the hall light behind him, who it was.

"Hah. There you are, fucking slut."

Chilled air flooded the living room. Sena's skin was numb.

"I haven't seen you in a while. I thought I'd come by. See how you were."

_How did you get in,_ thought Sena nonsensically, because of course nothing like a door or the doorman downstairs would keep _him_ out.

"Nice place, slut."

Two years. _It's been two years,_ Sena wanted to shout. _Two years! How dare you show up again now!_

"Not as nice as mine."

Sena wasn't stupid. He knew how this went. He knew from bitter experience, from the horrible, horrible thing he'd done to Kengo. And now, just like last time, he again knew exactly what he had to do.

This time, he did.

"Get out," said Sena. "Or I'll call the police."

There was a raised eyebrow. "Ooo. Fucking trash grew some balls."

He didn't leave. Of course, that would have been too easy.

"I mean it," added Sena. His voice was firm. Confident. As if Shien was standing there with him. "Just leave."

Two steps—two _inhumanly_ quick steps—and Sena flinched at the cold air and black leather that stood over him, the sharpness of those eyes.

Of the head, still dreadlocked, that lowered to his.

"You," said that mouth, almost into his ear, "smell like somebody's been fucking you."

Sena's pulse was racing. He was painfully aware that he was only wearing a shirt and shorts. He managed to say, though his voice was higher than it had been, "What do you care?"

The mouth moved closer, and Sena trembled at the lips that almost brushed his ear. "What if I did you here, right now, on the floor? Or maybe we could go back to the bedroom, do it in the bed. I won't tell if you don't. You could get him to fuck you again later, in the same place. You'd like that, wouldn't you, whore?"

Sena's stomach clenched, and he couldn't tell if it was from fear or hatred or— "Just get the fuck out."

There was a moment, an instant of stillness, when Sena was sure he was about to be struck. The air was jagged with imminent violence, with anger-turning-force. Sena didn't want to be shaking, but he was, even if some part of him was hoping, _hoping_, that all he had to do was take a beating, because if he hit Sena even _once_, then Sena could finally turn his back on him—

"Look at you," whispered that mouth. "You want me so bad you can't even _think_. Fucking fag."

This couldn't be happening. Sena willed himself to wake up from this nightmare, because this couldn't possibly really be happening. Two years. Two years of dating Shien, loving Shien, living with Shien. Of making plans and meeting Sena's parents and talking about where they would move after Sena's graduation. Of meeting Shien's father next month, of going on a celebratory vacation once Sena had his degree, of looking at those adoption pamphlets Shien's father kept not-so-subtly throwing at him.

The mouth moved away from his ear. Sena had an impression of a giant straightening up in front of him, of white teeth bared in a vicious smile.

"Give it up, slut." The satisfaction, the _contempt_. "You'll never get over me."

And then—

And then he turned and walked back to the open door.

As if nothing had happened. As if he was just a visitor, now leaving.

Sena stood there, his back to the lighted study, and watched him go.

Except at the front door, he stopped, and looked over his shoulder.

"It's no use," he said. "I—" contentedly, almost _gleefully_ "—_ruined_ you."

He reached out and put his hand on the door handle.

"See you soon," he said, a voice sinuous, a snake in the grass. _"Sena."_

The door closed.

Sena stood, alone in the cold and the partial dark, in the apartment he and his lover called their own. He stood there and listened for the footsteps, for the click of the elevator button, the ding of the elevator doors opening. He imagined a tall, cocksure figure walking through the front doors of their apartment complex, ignoring the doorman, and down to the street, where there might be a car or a bike or maybe a woman with a car—

"It's not the same," said Sena. To the dark, to the empty apartment. "It's not the same."

Because Shien was not Kengo. He'd loved Kengo—probably—at least, he'd had feelings for Kengo—but Sena wasn't the same person he was then. He had two years of love and fidelity with which to guard himself, two years of being absurdly, laughably happy. He had promises, plans, a _future_—

It wasn't the same.

And if he'd trembled from more than just fear or hate, if he'd found himself almost drowning with the urge to lean into the mouth that had come so close to touching him, if not more than an hour after making love to Shien, he'd almost cried out from the desire to touch _him_—

_See you soon, Sena._

"It won't be the same," said Sena, through his teeth—to himself, to no one, to the air. "It won't be the same!"

He could do this. Sena was pathetic and an awful person for wanting anyone other than Shien, but that was just lust. Base lust. He could be stronger than this. He would be. Even if _he_ came back a hundred times—a thousand—Sena would tell him the same thing as he'd told him today, _Just get the fuck out._

Sena wasn't crying. That was just salt in his mouth, from sweat. Those weren't tears. He wasn't crying.

He wasn't crying, he wasn't weak, and it wasn't the same. He would never do to Shien what he'd done to Kengo. Not Shien, who had spent his whole life being hurt and disappointed. Not Shien.

It would be different this time.

It would.


End file.
